Even in Paradise

by Chelsey Philpot

  “It’s a mess, isn’t it?” said Piper as she stood up from where she had been sitting next to a stack of books on the floor near the window. “Jules just can’t abide throwing anything out. She says it makes her feel bad.”

  Her full name came to me suddenly. Piper Houghton. St. Anne’s was small enough that I knew she and Julia were inseparable. Teachers and coaches strung their names together like they were one longer word: PiperandJulia, JuliaandPiper. Last night was one of the handful of times I had seen them apart.

  “It’s true,” Julia said as she moved toward her closet. “I hate throwing things out. What’ll your poison be? I’m afraid selection is pretty limited because somebody . . .” She cut her eyes toward the chaise longue. “Well, because somebody decided that it being a Wednesday was good enough a reason to drink half a bottle of rum.” Julia started reaching behind the rows of clothes, retrieving three plastic water bottles with their labels peeled off and standing them up on the floor beside her like soldiers lining up for inspection. The way she handled them gave away their contents.

  “It’s four in the afternoon. How do you have all that in your room? Does your proctor even—” I said before Piper interrupted me.

  “Yes, poor Jules just can’t stand the thought of any broken knickknack, old dress, or, say, ratty old stuffed moose, or whatever the hell that germ trap is, going in the trash.” Piper raised her arms above her head and arched her back like a cat stretching. “In fact, I’d say our Jules is a great collector. Stray dogs, dejected horses . . . people.” She glanced at me and smiled with her lips tightly pressed together. She walked over to Julia and slid her arms around her waist, hugging her until her chin rested on the shorter girl’s left shoulder. “But that’s why we love her. Isn’t it?”

  Julia shrugged and twisted out of Piper’s embrace as she turned with two plastic tumblers in her hands. “Piper, ne recommence pas.” Her voice sounded like loose gravel scattering down a hill. “Besides, you know how I feel about you calling Aloysius ratty.”

  Piper dropped her arms. She watched Julia weave her way toward me the way someone might watch a person board a plane to a war zone.

  She shivered and then straightened her back, raising her chin again. “Whatever, Jules. You’re just being pissy because we left you last night. And that thing is a health hazard. You better hope the nurse never gets her hands on him, or he’ll end up in the graduation bonfire.” She flopped down in one of the beanbag chairs and picked up a clear plastic cup containing a watery, pink liquid from the floor beside her. Her eyes met mine over the rim. She raised the glass in front of her and nodded her head at me before tipping it back and swallowing what remained of her drink.

  Julia barely glanced at Piper’s salute. I hadn’t noticed in the hall, but Julia’s cashmere sweater wrap had holes in the sleeves that she had forced her thumbs through, and her dark halo of hair looked as if it hadn’t been brushed that day. The hands that clutched the two tumblers were long, but the nails were short and her red polish was chipped like she had had a manicure months ago and couldn’t be bothered to get another.

  “Pour toi.” Julia handed me a tumbler with a slight curtsy. “A toast to my rescuer. À votre santé!” She tipped her cup back and took a gulp before flopping stomach first on her bed. With her free hand she reached out and pulled a pillow to her chest.

  “A votey santi,” I repeated and took a small sip. The pale green drink was surprisingly sweet. It tasted almost like a sports drink that had been left in a hot car too long. I took a second sip. This time I felt a burn in the back of my throat like a hot liquid was being poured straight from a kettle into my stomach. I slammed the cup down and pulled my sweatshirt sleeve over my right hand and clutched it to my mouth.

  “First night on the town, sailor?” Piper said.

  “I don’t . . . really . . . drink,” I wheezed out in between coughs. My eyes were watering. I swiped at them with my left sleeve.

  “A toast!” a delicate voiced piped up from the chaise in the corner, but I could see only a tan hand raised in the air above the piles of clothing. A girl struggled into a sitting position. When she turned to face us, her sleek black bob highlighted her high cheekbones, slightly flattened nose, and almond-shaped eyes.

  “Oh, Eun Sun. So nice of you to join us. How was your nap, sleeping beauty?” Julia’s sarcasm barely cloaked her annoyance.

  Eun Sun snorted. “Guess I overdid it last night.” She struggled to sit up, as jerky as a robot. “Jules, you should have stopped me. You know once my face becomes all blotchy to cut me off.” She had the studied accent of someone who has learned English via Europe.

  “I tried, but you kept stealing my cup whenever my back was turned,” Julia said as she sat up and folded her legs, never letting go of her glass. She tucked her sweater around her knees, making her look like a very small tent. “After almost three years, the one thing you should have learned at St. Anne’s is how to handle your booze. Come say hello to our visitor, Charlotte Ryder. She’s a junior, too. She was the one who rescued me after you bêtes abandoned me.”

  “Hello, visitor,” Eun Sun said, rubbing her eyes and opening her mouth in a yawn that split her face in two. Sitting more upright, she blinked and then stared at me. “You’re the girl who did those thingies hanging in that place, aren’t you?”

  “What?”

  “You know.” She exhaled loudly. “The art center. We only have assembly there like every day.”

  “The sculptures?”

  “Yes.” Eun Sun settled against the chaise. “Yeah. The metal thingies. I recognize you from the little photo on the wall.” She snorted. “You look so pissed in that photo. Otherwise, I don’t think I’ve seen you once in my life.”

  I straightened my back and crossed my arms across my chest. “I’m in the art studios a lot.” I took another small sip of the drink, mindful this time of the burn.

  “Some say to-may-toe, some say toe-ma-toooo,” Eun Sun said.

  “So what’s your story, Charlotte Ryder?” Piper said. “Take a seat. Stay a while. Tell the rest of the class a little about yourself, since you and Julia already seem to know each other so well.” Piper drew the last two words out, filling them with meaning, but of what I wasn’t sure.

  “Piper, stop it,” Julia said. She had swapped the pillow for a stuffed animal that she clutched against her chest. Her tumbler was empty on the bedside table. “You’re being mean and it’s not attractive. Charlotte is my guest and you’re in my room, drinking my vodka, so you’ll play nice.”

  “Jules, I am being nice. I just want to know about your new friend. That’s all.” Piper twirled her long necklace with the hand that wasn’t clutching her empty cup and shifted in the beanbag so she faced me, her back to Julia. “See, I’ve known Jules practically my whole life. Our families have summer places near each other. We basically grew up together, so when someone new comes along, I’m always just a little bit curious.”

  “There’s really not much to tell,” I said, holding my cup close to my chest and wrapping my fingers around it to hide how little I’d been able to drink. “I’m here. Next year, I’m going to apply to a bunch of art schools.” I took another sip. “I’m going to be an artist.”

  Piper set her cup down on the floor and tried to adjust the beanbag chair so she could sit up straighter. “You either are an artist or you’re not. It’s not something you become,” she said, giving up and flopping back down.

  “Piper, stop it,” Julia commanded from the bed.

  “What? You don’t think the soup can guy knew in high school that he was going to paint soup cans? Of course he did.”

  “Well, then, I guess I am an artist.” I shifted from one foot to the other.

  “Okay, as an artist, what do you think of this room?” Piper made a circle over her head. “Other than the mess, of course.” She laughed. “How about those pictures over there?”

  I set my drink down on the coffee table and walked over to the set of drawers with all
the picture frames on top. A thin layer of dust coated the dresser surface and the tops of the frames. One picture was of a large gray house with a golf-course-green lawn rolling in front of it. Another was of a small red sailboat bobbing on dark water. But the one that held my attention was of a girl that could have been Julia’s twin. Her face was fuller and her eyes gray instead of brown, but she had the same nose and the same dark, thick hair. She was squinting as if the picture taker had caught her by surprise. She shaded her eyes with one hand, and the other was slung around the mast of what looked like the little red sailboat from the other picture. She had on shorts and a red T-shirt and a smile that stretched as far as her face would allow.

  “She looks like she’s planning something funny. A joke or something.” I picked up the frame carefully, tracing my finger lightly over the girl’s face. “Either that or she’s wicked in love with the picture taker. Your sister?” I asked as I turned toward Julia. “The tall one you were talking about the other night?”

  She did not answer immediately, but she hopped off the bed and came to stand beside me. Once she was close enough for me to smell the vodka and juice that lingered on her lips, she reached out and took the frame from me. “Yeah. At Arcadia, our summer place. Her boyfriend, David, took the picture.” She set the picture down at the same angle in the dust-free spot on the dresser and walked back toward the bed. “Her name was Gus.”

  “Was?” I said, still standing by the pictures.

  Eun Sun shook her head at me from the chaise, and Piper pressed her lips together as she twirled her necklace. There had been a test, and somehow I had failed.

  When I took my next sip, I could feel my throat working to swallow. The chapel bell started ringing, and for the first time ever I was grateful for formal dinner.

  “I’ve got to go change, Julia. You can just keep the T-shirt,” I said. If she said anything back as I shut the door to her room behind me, I didn’t hear it.

  THE MEMORY BOX

  The box was just an old wooden toolbox of my dad’s. It was rough-sided. The hinges squeaked, and it still smelled a little like sawdust and oil. It took up way too much space in my closet at St. Anne’s.

  But it held everything.

  Postcards from Grandma Eve, letters, trinkets I’d won at arcade games, ribbons from elementary school, my mom’s old locket. It protected my shells from summer vacations at Hampton Beach, buttons from old coats, and those colorful umbrellas they put in your drinks when you go somewhere warm.

  It was heavy with ticket stubs, museum pamphlets, and so many of my memories.

  I added Julia’s note and closed the lid.

  THREE

  “I HEARD SHE HAD, LIKE, a mental breakdown and they kicked her out of Mansfield Academy,” Amy said. She crunched down on a baby carrot as if to punctuate her point.

  “Amy, you’re full of it. Her family is the closest Massachusetts has to royalty. There’s no way she would have gotten booted out of some tier-two boarding school,” Rosalie said. Her Canadian accent became as thick as maple syrup when she was annoyed.

  I poked at the pile of salad on my plate and let my eyes wander. The St. Anne’s dining hall reminded me of a fancy ski lodge. Exposed wood beams ran across the high ceiling, partially blocking the enormous skylights. Floor-to-ceiling windows ran the length of the side that faced the quad. During free periods, when I didn’t have my job manning the reception desk at the art gallery, I liked to sneak into the empty building and just watch the world happening outside those windows.

  “Didn’t she date Indira in the beginning of the year?” Amy had stopped chewing and her mouth hung slightly opened.

  “Amy.” I coughed. “Uh.” I tapped the underside of my chin. She quickly shut her mouth, swallowed, and wiped her face with a napkin.

  “Don’t tell my mother I did that.”

  “Indira isn’t gay. You’re thinking of Ina,” Jacqueline said from the opposite side of the round table, not bothering to raise her eyes from the textbook in front of her. “And when would we ever tell your mom that you eat like a little kid?” She pushed her glasses up her nose with one hand and continued flipping pages with the other. “Plus, your mom scares me.”

  Amy shuddered. “She scares me, too.” She picked up a carrot, looked at it, and set it down before speaking. “You could totally say something parents’ weekend. It’s the last week in May, less than four weeks.”

  Jacqueline raised an eyebrow and looked up from her book. Rosalie laughed so hard she snorted.

  “What?” Amy squeaked. She pouted, then picked up another carrot and pointed at me with it. “When are you going to let me fix your hair?”

  “Uh, random,” I said, reaching up to touch where I knew the blond ended and my brown roots began. “Does it look that bad?”

  “If my mother were here, she would say, ‘Charlotte, are you trying to look unattractive?’”

  Amy’s impression of her mom’s high voice was so bad I nearly choked on a crouton. I was still coughing as I replied, “You know my stepmom, Melissa . . . promised . . . she’d fix . . . if I let someone else . . . too scarred . . . to finish beauty school.”

  Amy patted me on the back. “I wasn’t trying to make you choke. Personally, I couldn’t handle it, but . . . well, remember I offered.”

  My eyes still watering, I nodded. The conversation drifted to other topics after that. I was content to half listen, half watch the rest of the room.

  Lunch at St. Anne’s was loud, but never in an obnoxious way. Different groups had their established tables, but they were often an odd mix of girls and never firmly set. Academic overachievers were on the basketball team, drama girls on the student council, artsy girls in the debate club. That didn’t mean that people forgot for a moment who everyone was and where they came from, but it meant I knew of a dozen tables where I was welcome if no one was at mine.

  Maybe it was because to some of these girls I was still a curiosity, with my accent that caught on certain words like a long shirt on thorns, or maybe it was because I listened more than I talked, but I got along with most girls at St. Anne’s. I was friendly with many, close to few.

  Jacqueline and I had become friends after I stumbled on her crying in the Bio wing bathroom. She had just gotten a D on an exam and was so upset she ran from the classroom to throw up. I gave her my cardigan to cover up her shirt. I got to know Amy after she wandered into my studio, looking for someone to tell her whether or not her butt looked big in her Guys and Dolls costume. She ended up staying for half an hour and telling me about the diet tips her mother sent her and how she missed her cat back home in Connecticut. As for Rosalie, I had just been lucky. We were stuck in a room together freshman year. We bonded over both being from towns so small they didn’t have traffic lights, and we had lived with each other since.

  “Anyway.” Rosalie shoved her tray out of the way, knocking my own so she could cross her arms on the table. “Charlotte actually got to go to her room the other day ’cause Julia felt bad about barfing all over her. So she would probably know more about the Buchanans than any of us, eh?”

  Three sets of eyes turned toward me. “Why are we back to talking about Julia Buchanan?” I said as I dropped my fork on my plate, giving up on the salad. I wasn’t hungry anyway. “I don’t know any more than you guys.”

  “Come on, Charlotte.” Jacqueline shut her book with a thunk. “You gotta be curious. It’s weird. The girl starts here as a junior. Who does that?”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the table in the far right corner. She was there today. When Julia came to lunch, I never saw her actually eating. Her chair was the farthest one from the entrance and when she wasn’t there, it was left empty just in case. I doubt this was something her group ever did by conscious decision. They just did it. She never sat facing forward with her feet on the floor. She perched and sprawled and once even stood on her chair until Dr. Blanche came to the table and suggested she get down. Today she had one knee up and the other leg resting on Pi
per’s lap. She was gesturing wildly, and from time to time her entire table erupted with laughter.

  “Earth to Charlotte.” Rosalie waved a hand in front of my face.

  “Huh? Sorry.”

  “I bet she got kicked out of all the other places for drugs so she had to transfer. Those kinds of girls.” Rosalie nodded her head in the direction of the back table. “They’re always into heavy stuff. I bet that was it.”

  Amy drummed her polished fingernails on the table. “That’s ridiculous. Her dad was a governor.”

  “Senator,” Rosalie said. “Her dad was a Massachusetts state senator. He dropped out of the race for governor when the press found out about all his affairs.”

  “You don’t—” I started.

  “No.” Amy leaned forward and then, as if hearing her mother’s voice in her head, took her elbows off the table. “He stopped running after her older sister crashed her car and died. Don’t you remember? It happened like three summers ago. It was really bad. A boy died, too. It was all over the news for all of August.”

  “Guys, come on—”

  “I remember that. The sister went here, right?” Rosalie shoved back her chair and stood up. “It was after a boat race or polo game or something. Her sister was wasted, but the guy was supposedly the one driving. Didn’t his family sue?”

  Amy shrugged and stood, too, sweeping her blond hair over her shoulders. “Don’t know.” She looked down at her plate, still full of baby carrots and celery. “I’m going to go get a cookie.” She started toward the kitchen area and then stopped and turned to look at us. “Don’t tell my mother.”